The Glen Rose Beavers came to Eagles Stadium tonight, perhaps for the first time in the history of both schools. The game featured a Glen Rose team that was picked by many to win the 3A-4 conference. The Beavers’ looked the part tonight, defeating Paris 54-7 in week one of the conference season.
The game was never really in doubt at any point of the contest. Paris was clearly over-matched by an experienced, talented, and very big Glen Rose team. Paris struggled with moving the ball offensively, and defensively, the Eagles had few answers to slow the Glen Rose offense.
The game took a controversial turn late in the second quarter. Glen Rose, leading 35-0 against a Paris team that was having very little success, elected to take the ball after a turn over on downs, inside their half of the field with approximately 40 seconds remaining in the first half. A lot of teams in the Beavers’ position would have chosen a conservative running play, or, would have taken a knee to run out the first half. Glen Rose was scheduled to have the first possession of the second half after Paris had chosen to receive the opening kickoff.
But Glen Rose went into a “trips right” (three wide receivers at the line on the right side of their formation) and threw the ball two out of three downs to score just before the end of the first half. The PAT was unsuccessful, and the Beavers took at 41-0 lead into the locker room.
As a sportswriter I am not going to comment on this, other than to say a lot of teams would not have elected to be that aggressive with a 35 point lead just before the half against a team that had shown no threat to them the entire half. That is all I am going to say.
But Paris fans can be proud of the effort the Eagles played with all night. They were clearly outmatched against a very good football team, but they kept battling on every down.
The Eagles will go on the road next week to Bismarck to play their second conference game of the year. The Lions will be another big test for Paris with the schedule not getting any easier in their first year in the newly revamped 3A-4.
Look for a preview of the Bismarck game in next week’s Logan County weekly newspaper. Additional photos from this game will be published on Facebook at Paris Eagles sports next week.
